82 per cent of CIOs admit to fearing for their job security

Changing nature of CIO role, lack of control over cloud services and poor relationships with CEOs, CFOs and CMOs are blamed for dip in confidence of CIOs

A whopping 82 per cent of CIOs admit to worrying about job security, according to Brocade's Global CIO Survey 2015.

The proportion is even larger in the UK, with 87 per cent stating that changing responsibilities make them "extremely" or "somewhat" concerned about their job security.

Brocade put this down to the changing nature of the CIO role, the diminishing control CIOs have over cloud services and their poor relationship with other business leaders.

Twenty-eight per cent of UK CIOs said they have a poor relationship with other business leaders - significantly worse than the global percentage (15 per cent). Nearly a third (32 per cent) said they had a poor relationship with their organisation's CEO, compared to just 14 per cent globally, and 40 per cent say the same thing about their CFO (compared to 15 per cent globally). UK CIOs are also feeling the strain of working with CMOs - with 32 per cent stating they have a poor relationship with the marketing chief, compared to eight per cent globally.

Meanwhile, 96 per cent of UK CIOs surveyed said that their business units have bought cloud services without the IT department's involvement - despite only 20 per cent of organisations saying that this was permitted. Ninety-two per cent of UK CIOs said that they expect this trend to increase over the next five years.

And these unsanctioned cloud services are causing all sorts of problems for CIOs. Nearly half of UK CIOs surveyed (48 per cent) said their lack of control over cloud services made it difficult to predict bandwidth requirements and manage their organisation's network effectively, while 20 per cent of global CIOs surveyed said that unsanctioned cloud services caused "extreme stress".

Other interesting findings from the survey included 50 per cent of global CIOs claiming that they had lost around 1,000 working hours as a result of having to react to unexpected problems such as data loss and network downtime. Meanwhile, 40 per cent are worried about choosing the right vendors to support their business strategy.

The Brocade Global CIO Survey 2015 involved interviews with 200 CIOs - 25 each from the UK, France, Germany and Russia, and 50 each from China and the US. The research included in-depth interviews independently conducted by Vanson Bourne. All CIOs surveyed work for organisations that have 250 employees or more, while 81 per cent work for firms that have between 500 and 5,000 employees.